


The Steve Rogers Appreciation Society

by Beth Winter (BethWinter)



Series: Winter Orbit [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Feminist Themes, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shooting Guns, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:38:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethWinter/pseuds/Beth%20Winter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>She smiles showing teeth for the first time ever, and says that word that's a catch-all for him, her, and maybe the ghost of a German scientist with a really good eye. "Steve."</p>
</blockquote>Bucky and Peggy are members of an exclusive club.
            </blockquote>





	The Steve Rogers Appreciation Society

I.

The lady in red tells Steve to see Stark at eight, so eight it is for Captain Rogers, crisp and bright and whistling as he shaved.

Sergeant Barnes, on the other hand, manages to crawl out of bed by eight thirty, just as rumpled as he was when crawling into the bottle. It takes him ten minutes to tie his shoes, and ten more to apply his scouting skills to finding the SSR shooting range.

It's that or finding the bottle again. Bottle or gun, the two ways to avoid the sharp edges of the hole in his memories.

(He'd try holding on to Steve, but Steve is still with Stark, having whatever it is done to him. Again, maybe. If the serum works as well as the flying cars, Bucky will be having _words_.)

The range is dark and dusty, and the gun is a good heavy weight in his arms. Nothing wrong with his sniper rifle - and he doesn't sleep with it, no matter what the guys say - but there is reassurance in the firm kick of a sidearm, the target close enough to see the tears in the paper.

There are three lanes in the range, and he's on the middle one, so when the lady comes in, she's got no choice but to take up position next to him.

Her Browning echoes less than his Colt. She shoots it like she means it, tight neat clusters in vital points. Head, neck, shoulder, heart, groin.

She goes through bullets fast, like she has something to prove. They run out at the same time, which means he can follow her to the cabinet with boxes of ammo.

"Are there any forty-fives?" Bucky asks. The boxes he can see are all fancy British stuff, the nine-millimeter rounds.

She passes him a box of forty-fives from over her head. He feels her eyes follow him when he steps back to load his magazines, giving her space. It isn't done to crowd a lady, even if she doesn't have a gun.

"Thanks," he says. "Nice shooting."

"As was yours." Her fingernails click against the bullets, a different sound than the metal-on-metal of bullets sliding into the magazines. "Yours was better."

"I was going slower," he offers. "You were practicing taking someone down before he gets close enough to hit you, right?"

She looks at him for the first time. Those brown eyes are piercing, even in the dim light of the range. He's kind of glad she didn't look at him the night before. He's got it more together now, making the cracks fit closer.

"Margaret Carter," she offers.

"Bucky." He tries to get the right grin up. He's slipping, the muscles of his face not fitting together like they should. "I mean, Sergeant James-"

"I know." Her smile is perfect, just that little hint in the edges, all business in front. "St- Captain Rogers said."

"Steve talked about me?" Bucky hates the way his voice almost dies at the last word.

"I was there when he found out you were captured. I-" She hesitates, gun cradled in pale, still hands. "I asked Howard Stark to assist him in the rescue attempt."

"You flew out with him. Steve said. Dumbest stunt he's ever pulled." He manages a tweak to his grin, almost sharp enough.

"He was - emotionally motivated."

"His dad was in the 107th," he prompts. "And they're all neighbourhood boys - I mean, not all from Brooklyn, but all good guys."

"He was emotionally motivated to rescue you." She looks at him again, like a teacher trying to get him to grasp trigonometry. "Steve cares about people."

"Best thing about him."

She slides the loaded magazine into the hilt of the gun. "What's the worst?"

He shrugs, just one shoulder. The other one is still sore from the injection sites, red traces he doesn't remember getting. "He's bad at making people see him. Guess that might be better now, if he's got someone like you looking at him."

"Not just me."

Something about the way she says it, lips pulled together, and the tight angry groupings of her shots, gives him a hint. He needs to talk at Steve about talking to dames again, because Miss Red Dress is class and shoots to kill. This isn't a fight he can solve for Steve, but he can help. Starting now.

"Bet that has him freezing up," he says. "He's not used to it. Six months ago, he was..."

"Half a head shorter than me." Her smile curves the full line of her lips. "And he still has no idea how to talk to women."

Bucky raises his arms in surrender, Colt safely at his side (uncocked, pointing at a wall, safety first soldier). "Don't look at me. Steve's Steve."

"He's Steve," she echoes.

* * *

II.

 

No-one else uses the shooting range before noon. Just a guy whose only useful trick is shooting and a girl who wants (needs, Sergeant) to shoot better than any man.

He changes the targets, because he's nice like that. And because he lost the coin toss despite his best attempts at cheating.

"You're getting better," he says, folding up the shreds of silhouettes. "You wanna try something heavier?"

"It depends on the offer." She says it like she's having tea with the queen, in that way that makes Steve blush.

"Was thinking we could switch. Weapons, I mean. Heat of battle, you never know what you'll have to pick up."

She lets the Browning slide forward in her fingers, turning under its own weight so he can catch it, barrel always at the ground.

He has to unholster the Colt to hand it over. He doesn't even remember putting it there when his target disintegrated under its own weight. Her fingers are long enough to wrap around the grip. Steve's wouldn't be, not nine months before.

He fires the first three rounds carefully, aiming at the edges of the target to test the accuracy. The ten shots that follow leave a single hole in the very center.

Peggy takes it slower. She lets the recoil of the seventh shot rock her just a little, a full-body shiver that has no impact on her aim.

"I think there may be a point to larger calibers," she decides.

"Stop a bull in his tracks," Bucky prompts.

"Or a car?"

He shrugs. "If you hit the engine."

A muscle twitches in her cheek. Muscle-memory, he thinks.

"You had to stop a car before?"

"In New York," she says. "The man who killed Doctor Erskine. I only had a Walther, short nines. It wasn't powerful enough."

He got a little of that story out of Steve. He thinks he'd have liked the doc. "You were there? During the big light show?"

Which is when she tells him about the experiment. Not just that day in Brooklyn, but the whole thing, starting six months before when she came over from London, so thoroughly burned in Paris and Dieppe that the OSS had no more use for her. Erskine, it turns out, had a soft spot for hopeless cases.

"He'd love all of us," Bucky declares. "Would have been a honorary Howling Commando."

"He hated shooting," she says, looking somewhere beyond the wall of the shooting range. "But he wanted peace more than he hated war."

"How'd he do it?" They're sitting on the bench at the back of the range, ammo boxes at their feet, and he nudges her with his shoulder. "How did you?"

She raises those eyebrows in that way that makes her look like Marlene.

"See Steve," he explains. "And convince people to see Steve."

He tries not to show how much he needs this answer. He'd been trying to make people see Steve for over a decade, and they managed to do it in what, a week from that recruitment tent to the serum and the Vita-Rays?

"I've trained myself to be observant."

Okay, he deserved that, and he loads up both guns to make it up to her.

"And he threw himself on a grenade."

He drops the box, bullets rolling all over the floor, and says "You're shitting me" before he can stop himself.

She smiles showing teeth for the first time ever, and says that word that's a catch-all for him, her, and maybe the ghost of a German scientist with a really good eye. "Steve."

* * *

III.

 

He's getting better, he really is, but some days they're back from two weeks in the icy mud and Steve's locked up with the brass for days, and the bottle's just there.

He's not stupid enough to try shooting when hammered, so he just holes up in the range with gun oil and brushes and his Colt (because maybe it's a handful of bullets but they can stop Hydra armour) and his Browning (because people are annoying enough for a baker's dozen of holes) and his Thompson (cover fire when he doesn't care if he hits anything) and his Johnson (because she's his girl).

He takes each of them to pieces, wiping every crevice, blowing out the dust before he even touches the oil. He hums a little, old showtunes, and maybe he sings a little the the Johnson rifle, just because there was a gun in that film and he's got guns on his mind. Before the fiddlers have fled, before they ask us to pay the bill, and while we still have a chance...

Peggy's trying to stomp a hole in the ground with each step, so he has time to stop the song before she bursts onto the range. She's all ice and grace, so he knows she's seriously pissed off.

"Briefing done?" he asks, once she's done with the first clip of her own Colt.

"For me." She takes a few steps back, nearer to where he's sitting on the floor, but not looking at him. "The last part is for high-ranking officers only."

Bucky gets it, more from the way she acts than what she says. "A guy'd be at least captain by now. Major. Major Carter."

She smiles at his attempt at a salute, a crinkling in the corners of her eyes. "Yes."

"Could do that. Tell the guys to call you that."

She puts her gun down next to the disassembled pieces of his own. "You're drunk, Barnes."

"A little." He shrugs, polishing the inside of the Johnson's barrel. "It's that kind of night."

She sits on the bench, the toes of her boots almost touching his knee. He's kind of sprawled on the floor, surrounded by disassembled guns. He thinks she agrees with him, but she won't drown her sorrows even on that kind of night. Another lady soldier thing.

He takes her Colt and takes it to pieces, on his left when his own Colt's on his right. She's done with shooting for the night, anyway. "You call all of us by last names, but Steve's Steve."

"Not in his presence."

That nudges a thought. "You drop the Barnes thing when you talk about me, too?"

"That assumes I talk about you, Sergeant."

He passes her the cleaned magazine for loading. "C'mon."

"If I did talk about you, I might call you James," she decides.

That makes him whine out loud. "That's not me. That's what Monty's posh girlfriend calls him."

She's trying hard not to smile all out. "Would you prefer Jim?"

"Morita," he says flatly. "It's Bucky. Buck-ee. Bucky."

She nudges the oil bottle with her foot before he knows he's about to reach for it. "I could be persuaded to use Buchanan."

"Anything but that." He makes the expression the most pleading he can, like the way he'd convince Mrs Rogers to use peroxide instead of iodine on their scrapes. "That's against the Geneva convention, Pegs."

She tries to look offended. "Sergeant, I never permitted you to-"

"Steve," he says promptly. "He's always talking about you as Peggy. This stuff sticks to your brain."

"I can live with Peggy. I cannot live with Pegs."

"That's exactly my point!"

"James," she says, and both of them lose it completely.

* * *

IV.

 

Steve doesn't do the shooting range thing - doesn't have to, after the serum his natural eye for angles is even better, guy can ricochet bullets off a mountainside and hit the goon behind the corner in the back - but he managed to corner Bucky in the mess after breakfast, so Bucky heads down to the range to think.

And maybe calm down, because he passed Peggy in the corridor and couldn't really keep a straight face.

Peggy misses nothing, like she got Stark to put microscopes in her eyes, so she's there by the time he's done setting up his targets.

"Is my face particularly amusing today?"

He manfully swallows the giggle. "Sorry, Peggy. Something Steve said."

She doesn't even ask, just stand there all pressed and polished and waiting. He can kind of see where Steve would get the idea, even if it's wrongheaded and stupid, because Peggy's single look is enough to make him want to stand to attention. Awesome in that way with shock and awe, and usually he likes being less scared of dames.

"Turns out the range isn't that out of the way," he explains. "People have been - talking, I guess, about how we're here together a lot, and Steve - you know the guy, never met a conclusion he didn't want to jump."

She swallows, all quiet and ladylike.

"I told him I'm giving you shooting lessons. Made sure it was loud enough for everyone to hear. I think it helps everyone knows you could kick me through a wall if I get too annoying."

She gives the wall an assessing look. "Not here. This is good Victorian mortar."

He can see the tension still in her jaw. "Steve grabbed me later, got a few more things wrong. Don't worry, I set him straight."

"Tell me." She follows him to the bench at the back of the range. "I need to be prepared should he approach me."

"Nothing too bad. He knows you're a stand-up girl, and knows me better than to think it's more than shooting lessons. He just-" He shakes his head.

She makes a quiet, impatient sounds.

"He's got it into his thick skull that you've got your eye on me. Need to talk to Stark about it. Cap needs his eyes checked."

That, finally, makes her smile.

"Told him you have better taste than that. And that you like blonds."

"You may have overstepped, Sergeant."

He rolls his eyes at her. "Trust me, everyone can see the sparks whenever you're together. You're better at not letting your heart show right out than Steve is, but that's not exactly hard to do."

She looks torn between annoyance and happiness. It's a good look on her. "You have an unfair advantage. I don't talk about Steve to other people."

"That's us," he agrees. "The Steve Rogers Appreciation Society. We should get badges."

"If we had them, everyone would want to join."

"He's getting better at it. Making people see him." He nudges her toes with his, almost the way he'd kick at Steve's leg to draw him out of a funk. "He's still got eyes only for you."

"And you." She puts her hand on his arm, and that's the way Steve'd act with him. "Keep an eye on him for both of us, when I can't."

"Both eyes," he agrees, very quietly.

She snorts, completely unladylike. "One eye, Barnes. You need to keep the other eye on Hydra."

* * *

V.

 

Somewhere around Christmas they managed to drag Steve along with them just to stop him stuttering. Bucky showed off with trick shots and Peggy unwound enough to trace a five-point star on a bullseye target, all holes lined up with surgical precision. It made their point, and in this late winter, Steve grabs his arm to tell him to give Peggy his best.

At the range, Bucky makes his best attempt to sweep Peggy off her feet and ends up on the floor for his trouble. He might be the better shot, but she's hands down the master at hand to hand.

"You gotta show me how you did that."

"The floor isn't soft enough."

"I can take a few knocks," he insists, rolling over just enough to give her the full puppy eyes.

"Not the day before a mission."

"Spoilsport."

She's smiling as she takes out ammo boxes from the cupboards, and yeah, they're more than all right. He can get away with batting his eyelashes, and she can get away with helping him load up for whatever Hydra's packing this time. Give him a month more and he'll have her calling him Bucky after all.

They're all waiting for the tip, information paid for with however many agents' blood, and he knows he's not the only one just about wired to blow.

"What'ya gonna do when the war's over?" he asks as he takes apart the Thompson.

"Visit my family home. I haven't... Mama told me to concentrate on the war until it's over."

It's a little shard of her mysterious history all giftwrapped, but he doesn't like the way the smile's all gone. "See, I thought you'd start with tying Steve to a bed so he can't get the gag out of his mouth and let his dumb brain get in the way."

She almost chokes on an actual laugh.

"Take my advice, only way to get him to do what he's told."

"Are you speaking from experience?" Her cheeks are flushed, and she looks a decade younger. Her actual age, not the I-was-born-forty posture thing.

"Only when he wouldn't take his medicine."

Her eyelashes dip, this little porcelain-doll move.

"Dancing," she says. "I'll take him dancing, when it's over. At the Stork Club. And then, possibly, elsewhere."

"If there isn't a James anywhere in the firstborn's name, I'll have you know I'm keeping my rifle."

She looks like she'd like to throw something at him, but she's too British to actually do it, so he throws a buffing cloth at her first.

It's kind of an all out after that. It takes them half an hour to straighten up everything and put his guns back together, clips all filled, insides gleaming and outsides darkened just enough not to show under searchlights.

He puts them away without thinking about it. Colt in hip holster, Thompson on his back, Browning at his ankle, Johnson at his shoulder. The clips go in the pockets of his jacket and trousers, between the knives and the other surprises.

"Wish you'd go with us on more missions," he tells her. He doesn't, really, because covering Steve's exhausting enough, but it's something she needs to hear. "More fun with you."

"They'd be over too quickly." Her voice is bright, just a little sharp.

"Yeah, because Steve'd drive into a tree staring at you taking out Hydra mooks." He fastens the last of the pockets, then leans in conspiratorially. "He likes it when you smack people down."

She gives him an assessing look, up close and very comfortable. "Are you volunteering for a demonstration?"

"You talk Sally from Records into a double date and it's a deal."

Peggy shakes her head. "She's not interested in men in uniform."

"Thought we were talking 'bout after the war?"

She darts in, then, and kisses his cheek. "Make sure both of you last that long. I'm counting on you, Sergeant Barnes."

He's grinning as he climbs the stairs up to the landing pad. Maybe he'll tell Steve about it, after the war, how Peggy kissed him first. Good memory, that. Something to keep him warm.

It's going to be a long, cold night, hunting Zola.

**Author's Note:**

> In the movie, Peggy uses a Walther PPK (8 shots maximum) in New York and Bucky's sidearm is a Colt M1911A1. It wasn't specified what she's carrying in London (the pistol she fires at Steve's shield is a Colt that was lying in Stark's lab), so I decided to equip her with a Browning Hi-Power, for plot reasons.
> 
> This story has a post-Winter Soldier coda here: [The Potomac Chapter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1590317).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Happy New Year (war is over if you want it)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1678334) by [Beth Winter (BethWinter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethWinter/pseuds/Beth%20Winter)




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